


Notes

by MythMonarchOfDarkness



Series: Mental Snapshots [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:22:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25076059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythMonarchOfDarkness/pseuds/MythMonarchOfDarkness
Summary: This is just my thoughts on the stories from my Mental Snapshots series.These are completely unnecessary to read. I just put a lot of thought into these stories and wanted to share some of them.This may explain somethings about the stories your curious about and if it doesn't feel free to ask.
Series: Mental Snapshots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1744693
Kudos: 3





	1. Patton

I imagine this occurring after Thomas is asleep the same day as the Putting Others First video and Patton finally has to think back on everything that happened.

To start the story off I chose two Janus quotes in order to show that:  
A. Those quotes are having the biggest impact on Patton’s current ‘mental’ state  
B.Janus is having the biggest impact on Patton’s ‘mental’ state  
C.Patton is valuing the words and ideas of others over himself and allowing them to negatively affect him

Neither quote was malicious toward Patton himself, in fact one is actually meant to help him. This is actually part of why Patton is so inclined to choose Janus as Janus was the only one to ‘help’ Patton during the video (i.e. Roman keeps bringing up examples that give Patton a hard time, and Logan only brings up opposing philosophers). Furthermore Janus actually explains to Patton why he is wrong whereas it seems, to me at least, that Roman and Thomas don’t really explain their points. Obviously none of this was done maliciously by them, and Patton knows this, however it does give Patton some extra good will towards Janus.

Patton’s room is dark as a reflection of his mental state. Patton can’t see a way forward and he can’t see anything good or happy at the moment either, thus he cannot see the items that fill his room, something we know causes him happiness. Also a dark place can equal scary and in this case he’s scared of himself and the pain he has caused Thomas as well as other pain he believes to be his fault. As well as terror at the idea of pain he might cause going forward.

Patton is on the floor as an unconscious act of self punishment, he doesn’t feel he deserves the comfort and safety of his bed. He’s in a blanket nest because an opposing part of him also knows he needs comfort and he would never subject any of the other sides to this sort of punishment.

This is exactly what I thought about when I heard the part about apologies the first time I watched POF. The moment Patton reexamines what was said he would break down because of the vague language. This could have been avoided if Janus had used more direct language, however he followed Patton’s example of being vague as to whom he is referring to during the talk. I don’t have a problem with this. I just think it's an interesting choice on Thomas’s part.

Patton wants to run however he understands he must deal with the consequences. He wants to make things better and knows he needs help however his fear holds him back from coming up with actual ideas himself. 

Right now Patton sees himself as something horrible and toxic and honestly he’s afraid his apology will somehow hurt Logan more. He is in no condition to be delivering his apology at the moment anyway. Furthermore, while what he did was wrong, he is blowing it a bit out of proportion.

I actually believe Logan would have been the best side to talk to as, despite his dislike of emotions, he would know how to calm Patton down and temporarily put aside the need for Patton to apologize. He also would not downplay the situation or dismiss the necessity of Patton apologizing and making it up to Logan just because he cried. I also believe that once things have calmed Logan would help Patton analyze what he’s been doing wrong and help create solutions.

I personally have a lot of problems with what Patton did to Logan. Patton asked for help and Logan attempted to do so. Patton then cut Logan off and ignored Logan’s position because it disagreed with Patton's. However I do understand Patton was incredibly distressed and Logan misunderstood what Patton was asking.

While Patton might have been okay enough, at that moment, to attempt to comfort Roman, Roman was not in a good enough emotional state to deal with one of the causes of his pain. This interaction with Roman was definitely one of the catalysts to Patton’s breakdown.

Patton is also placing all the blame for the situation on himself, to him he is the absolute worst thing, the cruelest side. At this moment he has the extremely unhealthy mentality of believing himself and his actions to be the root of every bad thing that has occurred.

Patton at the moment identifies very strongly with Virgil. A lot of what he is feeling are things I believe Virgil would likely have expressed to Patton at one point or another. Virgil has also attempted to run away, something that Patton would very much like to do.

Patton takes momentary comfort in the idea that someone else would understand. However in the asides video Virgil wasn’t particularly kind to Patton. With Patton’s current mentality of ‘It’s all my fault’ he believes that he deserves that treatment and is weary of possibly causing more pain to someone he cares greatly for. As far as Patton cares right now if Virgil thinks Patton did something wrong, then Patton must have done something wrong even if he doesn’t know what.

Personally I think Virgil would have been another good choice to go to. Even if Virgil is incredibly angry with Patton at the moment, he would likely recognize some of his past feelings and problems in Patton. Plus it usually takes something huge to go from loving someone (platonically as in canon) to not caring for them at all and I fully believe Virgil’s care for Patton would take precedence over any anger he holds with Patton’s current state.

Janus has been the one to consistently call out Patton and has also been fairly kind to Patton. Assuring Thomas that Patton wasn’t harmful on purpose and reacting with comfort to Patton’s distress over possibly being toxic. To Patton, Janus, at the very least, could tell Patton what not to do.

Patton is latching onto the idea of being able to avoid hurting those he cares about as a way to calm down.

Remus was never an option for, what I think are, obvious reasons.

I actually believe Janus was a bad choice on Patton’s part. Janus is a manipulator and he has no reason to stop. While Patton and Thomas have accepted him (and Logan either has as well or is neutral), Janus has not apologized for, nor does seem to feel bad about, previous manipulations or his acts of identity theft. Patton who is an emotional wreck and open to doing basically anything Janus tells him to would probably be too perfect an opportunity to pass up. Janus would undoubtedly help Patton but I think he’d probably take advantage of Patton’s state to sway him further toward Janus’ ideals.

Patton is ignoring the risk that the common room for the dark sides has moved, showing how little cares about himself at the moment. Patton is trying to avoid causing more problems and is hastily making an assumption that the darks might prefer this term, which for all he knows was just Virgil’s way to keep the us vs. them mentality.

Remus would be a wild card.

Personal headcanon. I think there would be a bunch of smaller, less-powerful sides that take care of things that don’t fit with the more powerful sides and that we will never get to see them. Plus unknown orange side.

Patton acknowledges the risk and dismisses it because again he thinks little of himself at the moment and if the world (AKA the Thomas-sphere) decides to punish him, then he deserves it.

Patton attempted to put on a brave face.

Fun fact if you made it this far. I wrote the story while I was supposed to be writing an essay. I was having trouble writing so I switched to an empty doc and decided to type random things to hopefully loosen my brain, I wrote an entire story about Patton instead.

Fun Fact 2: I literally have the document saved as “Patton Drabble I wrote instead of my Essay.”

Fun Fact 3: The name was chosen on the spot with very little thought put into it.


	2. Roman

Both Roman’s POV and Patton’s are going on at the same time.

My first plan for this sequel was to have it oppose Patton’s piece. Where Patton blamed himself for everything Roman would blame everything on everyone else. I was not able to make that flow or sound like Roman so I changed it in two main ways.  
1.Rather than ‘everything is everyone else’s fault’ it became ‘none of it is my fault’.  
2\. I didn’t make it as central to the story but it is still obviously there

Notice that unlike Patton’s quotes, Roman’s were said by Roman himself. Where Patton is valuing others thoughts above himself, Roman is valuing his own beliefs above the words of others.

I am worried that “absentmindedly marking any item to close” won’t come across as him hitting things with his sword as he walks by, however I honestly liked the way I worded it too much to change it. Sorry.

This also starts the problem with Roman thinking that he has to be the hero. To him, he is either the hero or nothing. You can also see Roman’s black and white thinking.

Furthermore Roman refers to Janus as Deceit. Throughout this story Roman never once refers to Janus by his name. This is because to do so would humanize Janus and make him more than just the villainous archetype Roman sees him as. Deceit is the perfect name for an evil villain, however Janus sounds to Roman like “a middle school librarian”. Not a very menacing image.

Roman’s room, like with Patton’s, is a reflection of his mental state. The reason its warping and items are vanishing and appearing randomly is because Roman is confused and unsure of what is real and what isn’t. Reality as Roman perceives it says that Roman, the hero, and Patton, the fellow good guy, working together will always triumph over Deceit, the villain. The opposite, something Roman viewed as absolutely impossible, has just occurred.

Patton is another confusing spot for Roman. On one hand, Patton is good friends with Roman and has probably been with him through a lot. On the other, Roman believes that he could have ‘won’ against Janus if Patton had chosen Janus’s side, making Patton directly responsible for Janus’s ‘victory’.

Roman wants to believe that Patton was controlled in some way because it gives Roman an out, a way to keep his friend.

The distinction between Patton and Morality is also sort of important. Morality is being used as a stand in for Roman’s ideal Patton, the one that fits with how Roman sees the world and Roman knows for sure would have never sided with ‘evil’ of his own free will.

Names are very important and that includes nicknames. Roman as far as I can tell uses nicknames as either an insult or a form of endearment. Janus of course receives plenty of insulting names, while Patton does not get a single nickname because Roman isn’t sure if he should be receiving an endearment or an insult.

Fun fact: scale rot is an actual thing in snakes.

Obviously Patton is scared of Roman because Roman looks like he’s going to kill him. This was mentioned in Patton’s piece.

Lyre snake is an actual type of snake. The original insult was going to be “lying *snake species starting with l* snake”, however when I found out about lyre snakes it was too perfect to resist.

The knocking is, if you read Patton’s story, obviously not Patton. It’s Logan trying to talk to Roman.

Roman collapses because one can only cover up their other emotions with anger for so long. Roman, sorta, hugs himself because he wants comfort but isn’t letting anyone in(to his room) to actually give him that comfort.

Roman feels like both Logan and Virgil bear some fault in his loss because neither helped him, however they also didn’t help Janus, so there isn’t as much of a conflict over their position as there is with Patton's. This is just Roman grasping at straws to put the blame on someone within reach.  
Roman then tries to force the world to fit into his perception. He tries to make the world make sense within his own rules. He does know on some level that it won’t work, but give the guy some points for trying I guess.

Yes, Roman has been crying the whole time.

Honestly I struggle to write Roman as he doesn’t resonate with me at all. Also I honestly believe that if Roman had let Logan in that, despite Logan’s dislike of emotions, he would have given Roman the hug he needs.

Fun Fact 2. This took so long because, out of all the sides, I identify least with Roman and have a hard time understanding his thought process.

Fun Fact 3. I finished the Roman chapter a while ago and just forgot that I hadn’t posted it yet.

Fun Fact 4. The name is chosen on the spot. Twists for the state of Roman’s Room. Pain because Roman is in pain. Blame because Roman refuses to take any and isn’t sure if Patton deserves some of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You actually read through it?! Amazing! Thanks again!  
> Feel free to comment your own thoughts and take aways from the chapter! Also leave any questions you have, I can try to answer.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow you actually read this?! I'm surprised! Thank you! Feel free to comment your own thoughts on the stories or ask questions about anything that confused you!


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